#230 - Todd Spencer

0:01 Hello and thanks for joining me today on Geese of Gear Episode #230. Today's podcast is brought to you by Elation Professional. Elation is excited to offer the new Proteus Hybrid Max, the highly anticipated successor to the companies pioneering Proteus Hybrid, the moving head that arguably started the revolution in IP rated lighting faster, brighter and with a tougher IP66 rating. The Proteus Hybrid Maxx has already been featured on premier events like the New York New Year's Eve Light Show on Seattle's Space Needle and Enchanted Forest of Light at Descanso Gardens in Southern California.

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2:46 I'm back and we have another episode here for you today. So who saw Marian yesterday? She was awesome. Mariam from LDI. She's been there for ages and she does an amazing job. Her and Ellen and the rest of the people at LDI do an amazing job. I've known them all for a long time. I appreciate them very much. I have a huge, high degree of respect for them. And so if you haven't had a chance to go listen to 229 yet, please do check out Marion and our discussion concerning her career and also the trade show LDI Trade show. And I also wanted to give props to this company right here. You can't really see their logo.

3:36 Maybe I can move the stand in a little bit and you can see it. So Ultimate support sent me one of these things to try and to give them my opinion and I happen to completely love it. I've screwed it up now by bending it, but I love it. I I think that this is the one I used to have, I think was a road one or something. They sent me this one. I I think it just blows it away. It's it's such a better boom stand for anyone who's doing this kind of thing, whether it's a podcast or something else. Now of course I can't get it back to where I want it, but anyways, great Stan, thank you very much to ultimate support. Love it and get one if you do a podcast or anything else that requires you to have a boom like this. And so today our guest is Mr.

4:28 Todd Spencer. And Todd's career spans more than 25 years, with firms varying in size from 1,000,000 to 3 billion in revenues. Over 18 years in executive leadership roles working with both startups and established companies to guide strategic and operational growth. Acquisitions, turnarounds and business sales. Established track record of success in strategic plan development, operational optimization, new program design and deployment, business acquisition and sale. And the executive leadership of multifaceted global teams. Generating success with a client centered culture, established credibility and industry reputation.

5:15 And also partnering with AV and specialist specialist event companies to achieve their growth vision through transformative strategies, providing consultative guidance to executives, entrepreneurs and ownership groups to maximize the value and output of their business. I'll tell you what, that bio makes me feel unworthy of even having this guy on the show. So let's have a chat with Todd. Hello, Todd. Hello, Marcel isn't. That weird. When we have a talk before we come on and then I say hello Todd, like I just saw you. Like I just answered the call. Interrupted context?

5:55 Yeah, exactly. It's a bit odd. It's weird. You know who taught me that, though was Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan always just goes, hello Bob, you know. And they've been talking for an hour and you know, smoking something funny or drinking something funny or whatever it is they do before they start the podcast, right. I am no Joe Rogan, so I have to be a little more official. So appreciate you taking the time to come and do this. I know we've talked about it for a little while. I'm. I'm an admirer of the things that you have done and that you do. And I'm kind of a consultant geek. I like consultants who have these, you know, really big packages of information that they collect from multiple companies.

6:39 And I I will give us both the disclaimer here and say that there's probably some things you can't talk about because you do probably have some Ndas with companies and things like that and that's totally OK, not going to try and get anyone in trouble. So any other ground rules? Not that I can think of. Try. Try really hard not to. Like do silly things like pick your nose on camera or whatever, because I'm not going to edit that stuff out. I will leave it in on purpose. As well you should. Yes, we do. We do have blooper reels and we are not too proud to play them. So we will play them and they get played on me sometimes too, like I do dumb stuff and it shows up and God forbid, believe it or not, Sarah actually did a couple of dumb things and those showed up as well. So there you go.

7:29 So you know, I like to kind of find out this is your first time on the podcast, of course. So I like to get a little bit of history on how you know our industry and and you're probably different than this. I'm guessing you know you you had a much more formal start to this. But our industry, especially some of the the folks a little bit older than you that I get on to the podcast usually like they were you know, playing basketball at the park or something and somebody came and said hey, jump in, I got a gig for you and they don't even know anything about lighting or sound or anything. And next thing you know they're working for ACDC or something. And I mean, literally, I've heard so many of those stories and it was either that like just totally by accident, I was sitting in a pub and and, you know, met Mick Jagger and all of a sudden I was a stage manager, or I was a DJ or I was a musician and realized I wasn't going to make any money as a musician.

8:30 But I really liked the lighting stuff or the sound stuff or whatever. So what was it that got you into the industry? Yeah, for me it was organic as well. Initially, I was really lucky. I had two teachers in middle school and then in high school who had both spent time in New York, had worked on Broadway, had worked off Broadway, and ironically had been roommates in New York at some point in the past before they came to Arizona, where I was and AM and decided to teach middle school and high school. And so I was I I benefited greatly from that sort of accidental.

9:12 I just met the right person who was really interested in it. And yeah, my parents weren't so interested in it because it had me coming home at like 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning after I'd be working in the shop and I'd be building a piece of scenery or playing with a lighting console and checking stuff out for the first time. And you know, I write as saucers. And so I think they, they got a taste early on of like, we're not sure we like having our kid in theater or this whole entertainment bug thing that seems to be happening that he's been bitten by. But yeah, I I really benefited greatly from that. And you know, for them, they actually went out of their way to try to get me connected with stuff, which was pretty cool looking back at it. You know, I can't imagine sort of being in that environment now and having a teacher being like, yeah, you know what, I'm doing an over hire call over here.

10:04 Why don't you come with me this Saturday and we'll just go, we'll go check it out, right. And there are some that do. And I just got super lucky in that these guys made me a part of their their own experience and their own community and sort of dragged me along with them in the places that I wanted to go. And it they usually didn't have to drag too hard because I was super interested in all the toys and all the things they were doing and so. You you never actually had a a real job then a job outside our industry. You know, I've so I've had a couple of, a couple of different kind of consulting areas that I've worked with outside of our industry. But yeah, my first job was actually a melodrama theater in Tucson, AZ, thinking serving pizzas and beers. I was a lighting and sound tech and then I was an assistant stage manager and I think I was making like $3.75 an hour and it was the best job I could have hoped for. Then it was a lot of fun and a lot of grind. By the way, I don't think theater wages have gone up much since then.

11:09 Very true. I think it might be 390 now or something you know. But yeah it's it's it's wild. So wow that's pretty cool. Straight out of school and and right into theater and and learning your way around to shop and stuff and so I know like fast forwarding a little bit, you you started your own company, right? I did. So I had a real interest in the lighting, kind of going through the different calls that I would take working for different labor companies than just sort of getting my feet wet and checking it out. I started an audio, actually, and that was a lot of my dad's influence. He had a background in designing audio products. He's an engineer who has mostly worked in aerospace, so he he had a real job by by his standards and using his engineering talents there.

12:05 But as it turns out, he's a brilliant design engineer for audio products. Really high quality studio audio type products. Anything. We know he runs a company called True Audio Systems and has a lot of preamps and some of his design work has landed in other other groups and other product manufacturers. And I don't in total know, but I know there's a a handful of companies that sort of use his secret sauce in their products. So was it was audio for him, a side hustle like he was in aerospace, and audio was just the thing, like a passion on the side, a hobby almost, that actually paid some money occasionally? Yeah it was absolutely a hobby for him. And he found this kind of magical space I think for him where he got to blend the the design engineering nerdy pieces that he liked with actually doing some front of house mixing.

12:54 And that was where I got sort of interested is because I would tag along and be this really obnoxious little you know 3 foot nothing talking mouth in the background asking all the questions of everybody who would talk to me and what does that do and how do you plug in that microphone and what does this knob do. And so you know I I all I had to say I got my first taste of it in audio run in front of house consoles and running monitor mix in some situations. And and looking back on it now it probably was a pretty funny sight to see like a 12 year old kid run in front of house on a you know a a a 48 or 60 or 72 channel plus console.

13:37 Like, I mean, I'm a little bit analog console. Yeah, but. A10. Foot long analog console back in the day. When When? Consoles were mean and big, you know, Now they're all this this small and they got 800 channels and stuff, right? So. Yeah, well, exactly how the meters and all the little incandescent lights glowing up there on the deck. And I mean it's like it's like an 11 or 12 year old kid. It was heavy, was amazing. That is so cool. So, so you then transitioned into lighting because it was just more from the creative side or what was it that attracted you more to lighting than audio? Yeah.

14:19 So I was in a venue where the lighting booth was on one side of the building and the audio booth was sort of on the opposite side of front of house, just the way that this building was set up. And I noticed there was this rivalry very early on, the audio guys didn't didn't, you know, much associate with the lighting guys and the lighting guys thought the audio guys didn't get them and their way of life. And so there was this inherent kind of funny friction that was there for me. What it was is when the lights move, the audience goes wow, and when the audio sounds really good, they do this nothing. It doesn't make a lot of. Difference. They know when it's too loud or too quiet, but other than that, you know, I mean, there's not a lot of change going on. That's right.

15:06 And so there were no oohs and oz and that's what it was. More so it was the Oohs and the oz that when I sat there running front of house going those guys move the lights and they have these atmospheric effects and they do all this cool visual stuff. I want that And so that was how I got involved. I defected from the audio booth and moved over to the lighting booth and they embraced me because I think it was their way of getting even with the audio guys that lighting was cooler but it played in my favor and and so I started doing more lighting gigs. And the reason I started the company was because I noticed that the guys making more money brought their own gear with them. They were showing up on site with their own hog console or you know hey I got a 12 pack of movers I can throw at this show for you.

15:56 And so I'm watching these guys and I'm like, what I want to get paid more. I want to be able to do more stuff. And so I bought a console and then I bought moving lights and then I bought hoists and Trusts and then I had a warehouse and it just, you know, like this mushroom effect of what happened. So yeah, sorry, long way around, but that's that's how I got there. That's what started. That was just this thought that lighting was cooler and more fun and got these audience reactions and I needed to own some gear if I was going to make it bigger. Yeah, yeah. No, that makes tons of sense. Like, I love the entrepreneurial approach where it's just as simple as, hey, those guys drive the nice cars, those guys over there drive the beat up old pickup trucks. I want to be those guys, you know, and just paying attention to how the money's flowing or how the deals are flowing in, in these situations.

16:49 So small company, I'm guessing like it never got to where you had hundreds and hundreds of moving lights. It was just a relatively small company. Yeah, it it was a relatively small company and so I got a call one day because I was competing in hotels and convention centers. So what I found after a stent of traveling was, hey, there's some venues kind of local to me that I could go and rent some gear and do some. You know back then what we called more industrial shows, you know now it's more corporate and AV and it's been technology is more kind of extremely accepted now. But back in those days, you didn't have big trust rigs hanging in ballrooms. This was not a common occurrence. And so I started selling into those hotels for those, you know, Microsoft meetings and Amazon meetings and whoever was bringing their sales team to wherever they were going. And it was July 4th.

17:48 I was outside grilling burgers and Full disclosure, I was a couple beers in and my cell phone rings and I answer it and it's presentation services. One of their regional vice presidents back then you know who later became PSAV and then later became global and and so the guy says I wanted to call you and let you know that I want you to stop competing in our hotels. And I paused for a moment and I laughed and I said that doesn't sound like my problem. And he was, he was very gracious to me. And he laughed and he said, let's just have lunchtime. Let's let's talk this thing out. Let's figure out what, you know, maybe what we could do together. And so that was.

18:33 Were you freaking out or inspired that you were on this guy's radar? You know, I'll be honest, I don't think I had enough presence of mind in that moment to really focus my thoughts. Either way, it was, you know, later I there was more inspiration to it. But, you know, new to business like that. You're also a little nervous, right? I mean, I didn't have the business history of thinking, hey, this guy doesn't have any, any real threat, you know, that he can leverage against me. This is just sort of one company calling another saying, hey, I'm a little chapped, you're competing in our space, you know? But I didn't, I didn't have that history then so that I would say there's a little bit of fear too, like, hey, that's a big dog. What do I got the big dog's attention? Cool.

19:17 Do I want the big dogs? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh, that's that's interesting. So did you have lunch? We did. We did. We had a nice little Italian deli down the street and a big old Philly cheese steak and talked it out. And he turned out to be a lovely guy and we became friends after that. And he said, you know, I think there's an opportunity here. Would you consider selling your company and coming to work for us and helping us grow some of our brands with what you know how to do? And the short of that story was I ultimately said yes. And it was a great learning adventure and learn a lot about our business and I learned about what to do and what not to do. And so you know, you asked about small company. It was a very small company and one of the reasons why I do what I do now.

20:15 Was inspired around the fact that I wish I had had somebody I could have called back then and said hey dude, I don't need all the chapters and sort of the the big business playbook. But I would love to have a mentor that would give me the curated chapters of here's what'll really help you right now. And I didn't have and I I. So I try to be that for others. Well, you know, it's such a great point. Like the the challenge is people don't understand like I I know so many people who go watch like a, you know, a a video of some guru, business guru, whatever on YouTube and they think that that's how they run their business. But the problem is a business from zero to 500,000 is totally different than a business from 500,000 to 2 million, which is totally different than a business from 2 to 5 million. Every one of those businesses is completely different. So the answer to a question like what should I do is an entirely different answer depending on which one of those businesses they are, right.

21:18 And and so I'm sure you now know how to deal with all kinds of those businesses. Like somewhere I read in the stuff you sent me, I think revenue from, you know, I don't remember what it was to something billion. You know, it was from like 1,000,000 to 3 billion or something. And there's a lot of stuff in there, like there's a lot of different businesses. And you know, I learned that a long time ago that I really didn't know how to get a business past 15,000,000. Like I I got a couple of them, 215,000,000, and then just hit a ceiling. I didn't know what to do next, you know. And it's not that you, you forget how to sell or you forget how to hire people or you forget. It's just all the nuances.

22:03 It's all the other stuff. Yeah, Yeah, that resonates a lot for me. And that's an area where I spend a lot of my time actually is working with those groups that fit into sort of one of three categories. They're a founder LED company. They're an early matrix company where maybe they've got a handful of investors, but it's not well structured. It's still pretty loose and trying to grow. And then you got a mature Matrix organization which you know where the big organizations that are big dollars and have C suites attached to them, right. They all have very different behaviors and needs and and and leadership ideals in many cases. And so you know when you talk about the revenue thresholds that is something that I think people don't really understand unless they've been and lived through the different stages of it.

22:56 And so it's kind of it's interesting for me in a nerdy kind of a way because I'll get a call from somebody and they'll start describing the issues that they're having. And I'll say, can I ask you a question, is your business about X amount of revenue a year? And almost invariably they will say, yeah, that's really close. How did you know that? And it's not magic, It's just because there are curated stages where businesses get hungrier or need different things to support their growth. And so hitting a plateau, very common. And and the other thing that you mentioned that really hit for me is I think a lot of CEOs owners, executive leaders tend to think if they hit a plateau or if they have a challenge, it's an indictment on them.

23:41 It's an indictment on their inability to go or grow beyond a certain point, and it's absolutely not. You know what? What What companies I think fail to give themselves enough grace on is to pause and say, man, we've kicked ass. We've done an amazing job of all of the things that we've brought to life over however many years to get us to today. And we could do some of these other things. Let's involve some other people who have been down that road, who have seen around the corner of what that looks like and pull from those chapters in the playbook to help us now. And those are the the people that I really enjoy working with. They're the ones that that know that there are those of us out there who who don't mind riding shotgun.

24:24 You know, we don't mind being the ghost in the machine to to offer guidance or help and and share those chapters from the big playbook that that could influence them greatly. Yeah, I mean, you just said so much stuff, you know. But one of the things that stood out for me is, is this thing where CEOs, you know, oh, I'm such a loser. I failed, I whatever. And I've gone through all of these same things and I've had to basically coach myself out of it or or train myself or whatever you call it. But one of the things I learned is to stop comparing yourself against others. Like to stop saying, you know, I'm here, but Bob over there is here and therefore I'm an idiot, you know, and but what you got to do is you compare yourself to yourself. You compare yourself to where you were six months ago, a year ago, two years ago, whatever.

25:16 And, you know, like this was a real challenge for me because I had these sort of these, these levels in my head that I expected to hit by whether it was certain years of the business or certain my age or whatever it is. And then life happens, you know, and and then COVID happens and then 52,000 other things happen. And you know, that's just the life of an entrepreneur. Like if you beat yourself up every time you hit a bump in the road, you're going to die of a heart attack, unfortunately. You know, So now really great words and and I mean, like I said, like I anyone, I get, people come to me all the time. Like, I can help someone.

26:00 I can't really help from like 0 to 5 million as much anymore because I never really behaved like the startups do today, where you go out with a great idea, you send around a pitch deck, you raise, you know, a few Angel investments or whatever it is. And like, I don't know that way of doing things. I'm a bootstrapper. So what I do is I go out and sell my car and get two credit cards and then I start a business with that and then I know that I got to pay those credit cards. So I better raise some money as fast as I can or raise some sales and then you just keep building it from there. So very much a bootstrapped business model, right. But you know, if somebody said how do I get my business from, you know, 5 million to 10 million or from 3 million to 5 million or whatever, I'm certainly an expert on that cause I've done it multiple times and I've also stayed in, in contact with all of the new like this is the other thing doing that today versus doing that five years ago totally different again because of tools that are available and yadda yadda, right so. Yeah, that the money piece has radically changed. I feel like in terms of not just the funding for the businesses though, I think that has been dramatically affected. You know most of the deals that I'm seeing right now that either I'm involved with or others I know in our industry are sort of going through.

27:26 Money's harder to get and the smaller you are, the harder it is. And there's there's a lot of reasons for that in my opinion. I think right now we've gotten to a place where there's so many kind of upper, mid and mega players in terms of revenue that big investors are looking for big returns. And they know that they're going to have to put in the time and then grind with a smaller 1 to get a lesser return than they will with a bigger one. And when you've got something big and you've got big money to play with to to force multiply that big thing, that's already got momentum. That's where you put. Well, it also used to be where these guys, you know, especially like family offices or or just wealthy individuals, they couldn't sit on their money because it was earning 1/2 a point or something, You know, it just, it wasn't.

28:16 But now they can earn four and a half, 5% plus just leaving it sitting, you know in a financial institution and doing nothing like the money's completely safe and and so yeah, I mean it's definitely getting harder. Your deal has to really stand out among a crowd. And I've I, you know most of this is just knowledge from friends of mine and stuff or companies I've helped get to that stage or whatever. But I've I've not raised money myself. I never have and hopefully never will. But who knows, maybe I will someday. But yeah, it's it's an interesting world out there right now. Like, you know, I think everyone's looking for a deal, but they they, they want more assurances now than banks do in some cases like, you know, why'd you have, you know, why were you three points down in Q4 last year versus Q3 and blah, blah, blah.

29:13 And it's just like, man, you know, if my business were perfect, there's a very good chance I wouldn't have to be raising money from you right now. So part of it is probably to cover up some sort of an inefficiency or a need or whatever or maybe it's just growth capital and you know, whatever. But so yeah, did you sell that small business then? Did somebody? Buy it I did. PSAV acquired the assets they did of that. There you go, They did they. Acquired the company and. Then hired you, They did, yeah. And then I had some participation and some of what that gear did for a period of time. So it was a, it was a nice way to transition into this is a good place to learn and have more resources and more access to talent that I can sort of leverage in different areas and that was an amazing learning experience. I think the, you know, having it was my first dip into this is a bigger company now when I got there they were doing about, I don't know, probably 150th of what they're doing now. So you know, for comparative scale it was a lot smaller and you could meet everyone in the company pretty easily. I think what what attracted me to it though was that there was exactly what you were just talking about. There was this level of authenticity and humility that existed in the gentleman that

30:46 reached out to me to say we've got good momentum here. We're not sure how to get it to the next level. Seems like you might have some ideas, can we work together? And that approach changed everything. I one of the smartest guys I ever worked for when he hired me, I and this will always live in my memory. When he was wrapping up his comments to me, he said and I look forward to learning from you. And that is the only time in my entire history where I've had a supervisor tell me they looked forward to learning from me. And I walked out of that meeting with so few words, feeling empowered, lifted up, respected, valued all the things I couldn't put a a, a name to in that moment.

31:30 And he did it in one short phrase. And so that stuck with me. But. Why did he see that in you when all you had done at that point was grow a tiny little company? I would like to think he saw drive and capability. He saw I was interested and motivated, and he saw that I'd brought up enough salient points that were kind of interesting to what they were doing that he thought give it a chance and he did. I mean, it was he took a chance well. And probably also because you were pissing him off enough to call you to begin with, right? So you were a bit of a thorn. In his. Side And so anyone who can get on my nerve like that probably is someone that I want to have near me and and get some of that you know positive energy or whatever you want to call it, you know and and learn from that I guess. But it's just interesting that somebody in a company, you know, I'm guessing 10 or 20 or 30 times larger than yours or bigger was, was looking at it from a standpoint of bringing you in to learn from you.

32:38 You know you can help us get from here to here, even though you've never done anything close to that in your professional career until now, right? So well it's it's very true and I would say those opportunities exist out there. Now you know part of the groups that I work with and get to reflect on my own experience with you talk about these groups that are in sort of that sub 5 million space or the you know the five to sort of 25 I find is an interesting space if you're a founder LED company and and how that sort of caps you out. You know, if you're a founder LED at 25,000,000, you reach around and pat yourself on the back 'cause you are rare, that is that really tough space to crawl from, you know, from zero to five and then 5 to 15 and 15 to 25 and they're, you know, they're all unique. And the reason I bring that up is because if you can find the the attributes that exist for those companies today, you know sort of that 10 to 25,000,000 space that's got the Unicorn DNA, those are your plays.

33:45 I mean from my perspective, you know, if for for the companies that are looking for something to build upon, give the right people a chance because like that guy gave me a chance as an individual. There's some really good small companies out there that I've seen go from 10 to 50 in two years and and they're not alone. I've seen it happen over and over. You just got to pick them carefully. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, so is that luck? Is that like an ingenious founder? What is it? What is it that makes that those ones do differently than the ones that never get from 10 to 15, let alone 50? Yeah. I mean, part of it's luck I'd be lying to. It's not right to like put 50% on luck and push that off the table because that's going to happen. It's a blend of art and science, I think. So the companies that tend to get there have CEOs, that or owners who who really value that sense of authenticity and a desire to be good, not right.

34:47 They want to be good at what they're doing and not just be the biggest voice in the room. I think that's a really important trait. The other thing is you have to have, you have to have DNA that's clearly understood what makes your company special to begin with. And don't lose that no matter how many transactions or sales you do. You know, my my advice even to my own clients is don't lose the DNA that made you special to begin with. The the other piece is have clear market momentum. Understand what's happening in the market that that you fit into that space and and what are the concrete things that make you special.

35:28 And I'll, I'll give you an example. I was talking with a hotel firm not that long ago and the guy was telling me, oh we're going to have the the greatest hotel on the face of the planet. It's going to be great. I said cool. What are you going to do? He says. Oh, the lighting in the rooms is going to be terrific. The beds are going to be super comfortable. It's going to have a a nice desk where you can sit and work. And I just looked at him and I said those are expectations, not exceptions. That's that's not exceptional. That's what we're talking about people expect. Yeah, that's that's the Holiday Inn Express. Everything you just. Said. Exactly. And and so I think too often people get wrapped up in their own Press of why they're so you know why their company is so great and and keep that enthusiasm, keep that drive, but be realistic about what it is that gives you your momentum in a certain space, right. Like you talk about Holiday Inn, you know what they do? Well, they market to the transient segment that is off the highway somewhere that is looking for an economy hotel. That's a good deal.

36:32 And they want it to be clean and they want breakfast. You know, there's a finite set of qualifiers that you can look at and say, yeah, that works. So now everything else in your strategic road map falls in line. OK. So we got to be off a main arterial, a big city or a highway with a certain car account or these are things you can quantify, right, You know, a little deep on it, but but yeah, that's really it. I mean, once you unpack the science of what these companies are doing, it's it, it becomes easier to see over time. Yeah. No, it's all great points. But so I mean for you, what was that like though coming from running your own small business, you know, straight out of school, working in a theater, doing lighting or doing sound and then lighting and then starting your own small lighting company. And I'm guessing you probably built it to three or $4 million if that and then sold it to them. Now all of a sudden you're part of a relatively large and rapidly growing company that's you know about to grow to over a billion dollars in revenue.

37:40 So you know, what was that like? Like, you know, did you walk in and go? I don't know anything. Like I really need to figure this stuff out. I had to walk a very interesting line. So I was young and that inherently put me at a bit of disadvantage with some members of the teams who who call themselves as much more seasoned right. I I now I I'd you know I always joke it's it's not the age it's the mileage and I got a lot of mileage. So you know and that was true then.

38:20 I mean, I've done a lot of stuff relatively speaking, even though I was very young. And so how did I deal with the the, the relationships with these folks that have been there for a long time and that that was challenging, right? To not know it all. But when you did know a lot of things about what was happening, how did you help productively? And so I got a a a real education on how to share ideas and communicate with people in non threatening ways. I got, I got an education on how to break a message down into pieces. When somebody's not ready to hear 100% of it, you know, can I get them from zero to 25 today and the next week I'll get them from 25 to 50% and and so on.

39:08 For me, being young, that was a that was a tough thing, 'cause I wanted to just board, vomit all over. I'm all of the things, and be like, we got to do it this way and do it that way. I'm old and I still do that, Todd. I still do that, yeah. Which I got a funny story to tell. You in a in a bit here, but yeah, yeah, no, I saw. I think, I think just coming into it gently and respectfully was was big. The other piece is I didn't understand the matrix structure. You know, I've never had to go down the hall to ask permission to do something. I just assessed whether or not it made sense operationally, financially. And then I did it. And this was a situation where I actually had sort of four bosses at that point in time. I had four stakeholders that ran different venues. And so I would have to go to each of them and say hey, is it OK if I do this?

39:57 And you know some of them like me, some of them didn't. And and and that played into how effective I felt like I could be and. Well, I was also. Didn't you change discipline too? Like didn't you move from lighting to rigging, which I guess are closely married but not exactly. I I did. So I got a call from a different gentleman, same company after being with them for I think about maybe two or three years at that point and I was handling sales over multiple properties, event sales for for shows, big shows. And he called me and said you know we know you like lighting and we saw that you had some rigging gear. Would you have any interest in figuring out how to stand up a rigging company and I not knowing any better went sure and you know and and just sort of really gave it my all. You know I I focused on how we would achieve it and how it would be systematized.

41:02 Because what I had learned in those few years was if it doesn't have a process it's not going to work. It has to have an easily communicated process to everyone in the company. And so here the ask was build a rigging company inside a company that has no reputation for doing that, for a company that doesn't even have clients. If they know they want it, they haven't identified to us that they want that, right. And we have no marketing experience with it. And by the way, we don't own any of that equipment. So we're starting from Ground Zero, but we got a checkbook and if you got some ideas, let's give it a go. And so that's what I did and that was how Psav's global reading services started.

41:46 Really was the, you know, the the not just with me. I mean I had a team of capable, brilliant people that that I worked with in that process. But yeah, I was the first phone call and and I just took it on. You had to have done something right, you know, prior to that to impress these guys. Cuz I can't say you know that that's exactly how I probably would have done it. You know I might have, I might have gone out and bought a rigging company and and you know taking the head of that rigging company and said OK, you're now the head of our rigging division and we're going to build around you and and the company that we've acquired and seems to be a safer path. But obviously it worked out OK for them and for you as well. So they obviously saw something in you and and you delivered. I am humbled and grateful by their trust. And and and I've told that gentleman that, you know, he and I have have talked over the years and he knows that I appreciate the chance he took because looking back, he was a senior vice president at that point in time. That could have been a career killer for him if he had done horrible at all, Yeah.

42:54 Well, and and you know, there was no guarantee that like you said, your customers weren't begging you to provide rigging services, your, you know, you weren't known as a rigging company, etcetera. So there's a lot of reasons that could have failed that weren't your fault necessarily. But add to that the fact that you're, you know, quote green in building a large rigging company within a larger AV company or whatever. So yeah, I mean, wow, that's a wild story to me. Like some people might be listening and going what's Marcel all excited about here. But you know, it's just such a risky endeavor from any angle you look at it. But the way that they did it was was remarkable. And you know, again, I'm, I, I know it sounds like I'm blowing smoke up your skirt, but you know it's true. Like you did.

43:45 You did a remarkable thing by walking into that situation and within a couple years, going from being the young, small company acquisition who didn't know much about working in a larger company, knew nothing about rigging. And now all of a sudden he's running this huge division and not only running it, he's founding it. He's starting it from the ground up and putting the team together and everything else. So yeah, I mean, wow, that's that's huge. That's really cool. I like it. Thanks. Yeah, it was an incredible experience to do that and you know being able to proliferate it all over the place. You know obviously it started in the US our first properties that we picked up doing rigging, we're actually in Florida and and so we picked up one in Florida, we picked up one in Tennessee and one in Dallas and I just gave you two states in a city, sorry about that. OK, well Nashville, Orlando and Dallas, how about that. So you know we picked up these mega properties in each of those areas and that that was sort of the you know the shotgun start to it was well hey we signed a contract we got to do it now we're the rigor for these buildings and and so you know going from all of those I kind of think of them like like altitudes now when you talk about revenue thresholds you know and and what does everybody do with those altitudes. I didn't think of it then.

45:09 It was all hands on deck head down run as fast as you can right and founder LED mentality that that's really you know that's that's how it how it works right. And you need that you need that three Musketeers approach at the beginning for very good reasons. The transition from small revenue to hey we're you know now we're making significantly more and now we're making a whole lot And now if the business is hungry gave me a lot of intricate practice in how to manage teams how to communicate with executive stakeholders inside a company, outside a company how to distill the message. So it was actionable and relevant. Really difficult stuff to learn in a vacuum. Yeah, yeah.

45:58 Nah, that makes so much sense. That's wild. No, I love it. I I mean it's it's an incredible story And so you know to Long story short that whole thing. So you went from start up inside that company, you know basically it was a start up within a a large company and you like you said you had to buy all of the gear, you didn't have the inventory to go after these customers. I would assume the customers were customers of yours already that you were providing other services and you were just going in and basically bumping off the the, the rigging company in those properties. That's exactly right.

46:40 Yeah. So you, you were just going deeper into your own client's pocket as opposed to going out and finding new clients, you were going to existing clients and just saying, hey, we now offer this service. We feel like, you know, we can package this all together and make it a really good experience for you. And you know, one of the other things I picked up in your CV, sorry to keep talking, but this is just, this is really interesting to me, was that you also managed to not only be profitable but constantly increasing the profits by you know, getting rid of discounts and raising prices and things like that. So it wasn't like you were just going in muscling people out of there out of these contracts and saying we'll do it for half the price that they're doing or whatever. You were probably charging more than they were charging, but because of the packaging and whatever, it just became a better solution to the client.

47:34 It it was. And I think a lot of that strategy around capturing wallet share, not unlike, you know some of the groups that I work with now is you have to really understand what the value is. And I, and I know that's a, it's such an overused word of, you know, we're providing value and what does that mean? Well, means it means different things to different people. But I I have found that I don't know if I would call it a magic formula, but it's kind of a magic formula that there's really four key pieces with a customer that will get you to, yes, over 90% of the time. And and the four pieces that I've found are likability.

48:17 Do you like me? It's not mandatory, but God, it sure helps. It sure. Does yeah. The second some people I. Don't like at all. And it's never a good experience, you know, you always want to buy from your friends and yeah. Yeah, you you want to be chosen, right? And chosen goes to that likability. You want to, you want to buy from people you like. The second is trust. You trust me. You know, I think customers ask themselves that question unconsciously and that's more a matter of will you deliver what you say, will you keep your word? Fundamentally when things go sideways, is there, is there some confidence I can have in you there, right. The third is, do you think I'm competent? And that's more a technical attributes question. It's more about do you think I know the business of what it is that I'm advising you on or or helping you through? And the 4th is do you think I can help you? And help is more nebulous because it's sort of like going to the doctor, you know, I'm I'm not a doctor. I can go in and say my nose is runny or I've got a cough or I've got a fever And then the doctor diagnosis me, right. But the doctor helps me is the important part of that equation. So I it's it's my opinion.

49:28 But I think, you know for a lot of these these groups like, you know, like what you're talking about getting in front of those customers and going deeper with them, for them the value was do you like me? Do you trust me? Do you think I know what I'm doing and do you think I can help you? And when we got that to hit, we had that leverage to do those other. Things Oh, that's very good, very good, makes a ton of sense. And you know I think I think all four of those so many companies fail on either trying to hit those benchmarks or just don't even really think about that kind of stuff. Like you said, they just run as fast as they can and and which is sustainable to a point. You know, it's like I, I look at our industry, especially sort of the rock'n'roll side of our industry since COVID and all of that stuff, All of the good practices, all of the the, you know, really strong values as a company and stuff. Most of that has gone out the window and everyone just ran as fast as they could because there was just so much business flying around and all you needed was basically a catcher's Mitt and you could catch as much as as you could handle, right. And and then all of the shortages of people and equipment and everything else came into play. But but, you know, I feel like that's like Chinese food. You know, it goes away really quickly. Like you have to have really strong foundation, really strong fundamentals in your business or else you know, you're you're either going to, you know, do this hockey stick up with with market conditions.

51:02 And those are not because you're a great company. Those are because the market's great and then you're going to start seeing it go down on the other end when when that market condition turns back to where it was previously. And so you know if it were a normal stable market, you would just continue to try and improve your business and and to hit those fundamentals and and pay attention to the reasons that people want to buy from you and all of those types of things. So, like I I've always tried to be disciplined in good times and bad, and I've failed, you know, many times I've failed. But I've always tried to use the same discipline when things are really good as when things are really tough.

51:44 Like you don't just tighten your belt when you can't afford payroll, You tighten your belt when money's flying from the sky and stuff, and you make sure that you've got good solid practices then. And I know I'm I'm singing to the choir here, but. You make a powerful point though. One of the key indicators to me when I'm involved with a new group is if I see Aceo in fear we have a major problem That's a you know the the fear based management and some people look at that as being the abrasive over the top controlling type personality and it and it can mean that the the other thing it can mean is they may not have the depth of experience to solve the problem that's in front of them and they won't include other people in a way that's meaningful to help them do that. And that's you know that's a really, yeah, that's a that's a a a difficult thing to overcome.

52:44 You know sort of to your point being stable in good times and in bad And that that lets me know a lot about the state of someone's experience right. Calm waters. Run deep. If you've got somebody who's jumping all over the place making knee jerk reactions to things, it's a pretty good indicator that they haven't been through that before. And it's not a criticism, right? If they haven't learned it, they can't know the answer. Absolutely. So. Absolutely. I completely agree with you. So you your your title when when you in your last days or last years at psav was VP of Global OPS and rigging or something right? Yeah.

53:25 So over my tenure there, I started the rigging services division as you know we talked about and then we also did a lighting services group and a Power Distribution services group, all of which I I had a founding hand in it at some point in time, managed and then handed off. So we we repeated that recipe a few times, but but yeah. So what are, what are? I'm curious about this cause again I've never managed to build past a certain point I'm trying to right now and I hope to get there. But what are some of the unique problems or challenges of first of all starting a company within a larger company like that and within that culture and within that, you know, because I know resources aren't a problem, but what are the problems when you're when you're trying to start a company in that situation and then you know being the head of a division where you're basically running your own company within a company. What are some of the challenges to that as well running it? Yeah.

54:34 So, so standing up and operating a big business unit under a portfolio company for a private equity firm, right, because it's really what we're talking about. I think keep me honest, if that's if I'm understanding your question right. But these these big companies, there's a few things right from the jump that I think are very important #1 have the patience to know what you're talking about first. There's a lot of people that you will meet in your first orientation and 1st go around with these big companies that will be probably 20% of who you ultimately need to meet to make your business unit successful. And so I I guess the first thing is seek first to understand, know what you're talking about.

55:19 Get a lay of the land, understand who does what, Understand what the company's DNA is, what's the special sauce that makes them important to their customers. Get your arms around what the culture is and know it inside out. I think those are that's sort of the very first place that I start when I'm looking in, in those environments, you know both then and now the, you know, the 2nd place that I go is to try to understand the the receptiveness of the audience and how palatable the project is to the organization. How big is this on the organization? You know, is the organization having some cash flow issues and this is a play because they need to grow their business and they're not sure where to invest? Or is there already momentum in a certain direction and they're trying to stand up a business unit to get more wallet share? Or is this a completely new innovative idea that's come to them from a specific subset of their customers that they're trying to take care of?

56:18 Cause strategically, those are important customers and those are all three different answers. So I think no. On that topic though, Todd, so when you're starting a company or a division inside a company like that, are there expectations already completely set and hard or is it like you know do your best, let's see where we can get in the first year. Like I know that that's kind of a silly question because I think any company that size especially backed by private equity, they they have very, very strict expectations. Like it's like yeah you better hit this in Q1. But when you're starting something up, is there a little bit of room to to to live within that if if you don't hit right out of the first quarter?

57:06 Can go both ways. Yeah, you're right. There's a financial modeling process that happens up front. How much are we going to spend? What are we going to get for it? Yeah, and and that's the buy in that you'll wind up getting from ownership or executive management. So it that sets the stage for what's going to happen. Now I have had it go both ways. I've had large companies that saw a lot of momentum and effort and they were comfortable with the investment and they understood the good work that was happening. And so they said, yeah, let's keep going, We missed it, but you know we're making good progress and let, let's use that to inform the next phase of budgeting. Let's use that to inform our CapEx process or our, our people process who do we need to hire into these role. They use it as a learning tool.

57:56 There are organizations who sometimes use it as more of a criticism tool, and I and I so, so yes to both. Interesting. Yeah. Because, you know, it's funny like you look at a large a billion dollar company for example, and I'm just pulling a number out of the sky. But for them to create a division that they've got to go out and spend $20 million on inventory for example, I'm not saying it's a drop in the bucket, but it's not something that's going to put them out of business, right. Whereas small business operators in our industry will go, that's a really cool product. I think I could build a business around that. I'm going to buy a hundred of them and they do it on a whim, you know, on a gut feeling that they're going to be able to turn that profitable. And I, you know, maybe that's just a lack of discipline. Maybe that's, I don't know, like I guess large companies are always a little more, you know, structured and and assure of themselves.

58:58 I guess I don't know what the what the word would be, but yeah. There there's one severely positive motivator that happens and you talk about between big companies and small companies, right drop in the bucket versus maybe a big investment. But they do it almost whimsically sometimes because it's you know it's there's not a process and or they don't know the process which is is also what happens. So what I personally think is the best approach for both actually is get the right subject matter expert involved who also has business expertise to model it out to help inform what the budget is.

59:39 So here's what usually happens. You have from a a large company standpoint, there's a lot of stakeholders who are creating the financial budgets and ROI statements for whatever they're about to take on, right? Maybe it's an annual budget, maybe it's a new business unit. They're standing up. 80% of the stakeholders in that conversation don't come from our industry or don't have subject matter expertise. That's not as a criticism, That's just a statement of observation. The reason that's important is because it's exactly the opposite. In small founder LED companies, you often have the person who has the technical expertise. That's what made them special to begin with, right? I'm running a lighting company. I love lighting. I have a lighting company that that sells to these customers, 'cause that's what I know how to do. It's already natural for them.

1:00:26 Now where they're weaker is on the business expertise. Yeah. If you can bring those two things together, somebody that understands technically what the product is, that understands our industry deeply and that that has the the business acumen to put it all together and say you know what, here's a realistic investment amount and a realistic budget and a realistic timeline, it goes much better like that. And sometimes that happens, but I would say that's more rare. I I would love to see more of that happen with. Yeah, organizations, yeah. And so, you know, I've built a a global company, a small company, but we do business in 100 countries or more.

1:01:10 And so I've had to learn you know, culture and different doing business in different currencies, different financial models, different whatever it is taxation. So it's been challenging, I will tell you that it it for a small company it's you have to be careful that when you go into a country you don't just lose money based on you know like just dealing with their taxation or laws or being compliant or whatever. So for you was that challenging like I I'm guessing prior to this job you had never done business outside the country, outside the US So what were some of your lessons learned along the way?

1:01:57 Two really big ones. The first was understanding that as a society, Americans have more of a Walmart culture. And what I mean by that is we take value from going one place and getting all the things we are as a society very influenced by one stop shop. That's important to us. Other countries see that as diminished value because they see it as generalist and not specialist. And when you're talking about things in audio, visual entertainment or especially higher risk disciplines, power rigging, automation, they really don't buy from generalist companies. There's not, there's not a a thing that sort of existed then. I mean it's working its way a little more now, but you think about how Europe, for instance is set up. You can still go to a bakery and get a loaf of bread. And when I think of the last probably 100 times I've bought a loaf of bread, I bought it at a, you know, a Walmart or a grocery store that had loads of other products with it, right. I never just went to a specialty store, but I think the the first lesson for me was whatever business model you stand up, make sure that it that it hits the specialist focus that will win the business in other countries and it can't be a generalist focus because that is

1:03:28 really more tuned toward the United States crowd the such. An amazing point like I I definitely I love that and you know what like as you're saying it I'm going that's so obvious because I mean I've traveled the world I've I've always seen that I talk about it all the time when it comes to food and and other things. You know like you go to the butcher for your meat and you go to the the vegetable guy for your vegetables you go to you know and I love that because the food is always fresher. They always seem to know exactly when you should buy what different types of fruit or whatever, and but I never thought of it that way in our business. But it's totally true. It's totally true. It's a much more special, specialized approach and I love that.

1:04:12 Great answer. What was #2? Sorry. #2 is about making assumptions. You know, I've been plenty of pace places. I've I've done business in the Middle East and Asia and Europe and they all have their own sort of nuances to them. But I found that pretty universally everybody, and this is more philosophical, they want the right to live in safety. They want the right to worship or not worship as they see fit, sort of a, you know a freedom of of religion or political alignment if you will. And they want to achieve success however they define it. You know, for some people it's just paying for, you know, a nice meal out for their family or being able to pay for their kids schooling or however they define it. But the reason I share that is because I found myself when I was traveling internationally a lot, starting these different business units all over the world, having my own preconceived ideas, having been only a party to sort of the new cycle that I see in the US.

1:05:27 Not positive or negative necessarily, but there were pieces that were not shared that, you know, that might not be interesting to the general populace. But as I was spending more time in those regions, they became a very high interest for me. I'll tell you a quick story about that. So I had assumed that on my first trip to the Middle East, everybody would have this sort of, I don't know, animus toward United States citizens, that there would be this friction or it was just it was my perception. It wasn't based on any real life experience first hand. It was just purely based on what I thought I had seen or heard or learned in my growing up years in the United States. So I was in the UAE in the old part of Dubai and thought I would go check out one of the spice market there, just because it was something fun to do one afternoon. And so I walked over and I found myself down this dirt lined corridor and old sort of mud brick buildings, very cool. And these little tiny shops that had two steps up on either side of me.

1:06:42 So I'm in this, this corridor that's this wide and there's probably, I don't know, 40 little shops all the way down. It's got a cover over the top of it that's sort of this colorful fabric just to block the sun and charming in its own way. And so I walked a little ways in and I found the shop that had spices just of every variety. I had no idea what these things were. I just thought they were cool. And I'll get some spices and I'll bring them home when I I don't know. I thought I would make something good with it. Right. I was. I was fooling myself in the moment, but that was the hope. And so I walked into the shop and the the shopkeeper came right up to me. How can I help you? I said I'd like a mix of something that's spicy, that I could use on like chicken or beef. And he said, you like spicy.

1:07:29 Yeah, yeah, really spicy is great, he said. Can I make you a Curry? That sounds great. So he pulls out this little kind of shovel looking thing and and he's whipping it in there. He's throwing all these different spices in the bag and shakes it up and it's, I mean it's 12 different colors inside the thing. Really cool. And so I thanked him and I start to leave and and he goes, you have blue eyes. And I and I never had another man tell me I had blue eyes. So you know, that got my attention first of all. But I said I I do. And he said, where are you from? I said I'm from the United States. And he goes, America, never been there.

1:08:11 And he starts telling me this great story about how he grew up in Iran that was, you know, not very far from where I was standing. And his family ran this orchard. And he'd grown up sort of running through the oranges in his childhood and this view of, of Iran that I had never heard, that I had never experienced. Right. And he calls his brother and yells to him from the back, and his brother comes running in and shakes my hand and you know, this, this was a big thing for them to, I guess, to meet an American. And so we talked for a few minutes and I and he stopped suddenly, And he just looks at me concerned, and he puts his hand on my shoulder and he says, Americans, we're friends, right? And it was in that moment I knew that the assumptions that I've had about going to the region or the assumptions that I thought they would have about me were wildly wrong. The reality was he didn't have any preconceived ideas of who I was.

1:09:10 And so I looked at what I I said, what was true for me. I said you and I are friends. I think it was a sting, OK? And this big look of relief. But yeah, anyway, it was it was kind of a one of those moments you don't forget. You know, I think Todd, that part of that was because you were kind of off the beaten path and and you know down the back Rd. and all that kind of stuff. Because I think in the more touristy areas, like one of the things I learned when I started traveling the world was I always grew up assuming. Because I think this is what the media told me at the time and stuff, was just that everyone wanted our lifestyle, everyone wanted Levi's jeans, and they wanted to live like Americans and they wanted to act like Americans and look like Americans and everything else, right?

1:09:55 And then I get over there and they're like, you know, you people are all assholes basically. Like, you know, I don't want to be you. You're an asshole. And like I just, I started to realize, you know, we're not as loved as I I might have thought we were. Perhaps. So it's almost the exact opposite. But but this was probably in more like, I don't care what country you're in, if you, if you're an American. And and you know, for periods of time I travel as an American. Sometimes when it's a little heated, I travel as a Canadian, 'cause I have both passports and but sometimes, like, I mean no matter where you are, if you're in Italy, if you're in France, if you're in whatever country and you're sort of off the beaten path in the country, you're in smaller towns.

1:10:39 They love Americans, everyone, you know, we treat them well. We tip, we we, you know, we're we're generally pretty friendly. But yeah, that's that's such an another interesting story. I love that, you know, the the spice thing. Yeah. So you're friends? You got a friend over there now? Yeah, right. Apparently Random Orange Orchard. How was the spice? Oh, it was great. It was. Not been able, 'cause sometimes they try and nail you when you go. I like really hot. And they go, OK, I'll show you really hot. You want really hot. Yours Really hot. It was. It was warm. I mean, growing up in Arizona, my comfort food is Mexican food. So spicy Cenoran food is kind of my jam. Yeah, yeah.

1:11:22 I mean, I just remember when I was first getting into Indian food and I'd go to like these really authentic Indian places and I go, I like really hot and they'd. Be like OK. All right. You know, and I mean, I couldn't even get it close to my face, let alone in my mouth. I was sweating when it was about, you know, about here, like about a foot away from my face. I was sweating. And you know, I've gotten a little more used to it now, But well, and then actually what happens is I think you go like this where spice, spice, spice, more spice, more spice. And then all of a sudden you kind of hit a ceiling as you get a bit older and you go, oh, spice really gives me a stomach ache and stuff. Like, I can't eat this like I used to. So yeah, I'm kind of on the downswing now on spices. I don't get things quite as hot as I used to. Yeah.

1:12:04 Do you know Robert Mochrie? I know Robert Mochrie's a rock'n'roll lighting guy, worked for high end for a number of years, but he lives in Austin, TX and he is one of those guys that the hotter the pepper, he didn't care. Like, give me the hot, what kind of Peppers you got. I'll have those ones. Give him give me a fork. I'm just going to eat it with a fork. And you know, he'd try and get me to try some of these things. And I like hot food. But there's you guys in Arizona and these guys in Texas and stuff. There are some Peppers that are just, like, violent. Those should not be legal, Some of those. So yeah, so that's a really cool story.

1:12:46 And so I mean it. You have such a personality where I can't see you being too offensive to too many people. So I would think that regardless of the culture that you're walking into, you're going to be very respectful. You're going to make sure that you're inclusive with those people, you're going to try and do business on their terms, you know, to whatever extent you can. As far as going into different countries, I mean, so I'm guessing you didn't run into a lot of trouble. No, not, not too much, not trouble. I didn't cause for myself, you know, like sand boarding and Oman, I really busted my ass up on that.

1:13:29 It was a good time. I do it again, you know, like you're on a snowboard kind of a thing and you go down the dunes and. It was blast. Oh, my God, it was a blast. The problem was, the guy just kept telling me how easy it was, but he didn't tell me how to stop. He's like, yeah, just just lean over. It's fine. Like, you know, you don't need a plan to stop. Just lean over. It'll stop on its own kind of a thing. Oh, yeah, I leaned over. All right man, I was banged up and bruised up and. So yeah, I certainly had snowboarding before or. Once, which I thought I would be qualified to like snowboard in the Omani desert is beyond me. But, you know, I was. Well, you know, I could I bet just because AI grew up a skateboarder and then you know, like I'm just, I've been skiing my whole life and all those things.

1:14:17 So like I sometimes when I'm on, you know, gravelly sort of shale kind of bottom of a mountain kind of things like I'll ski down just on my shoes, I'll, I'll parallel back and forth or whatever. And you know I just have really good balance for those things. So I don't think it would bother me too much, but snowboarding, everyone always says it's a three day learning thing. Like it's not two, it's not one, it's not seven, it's three days. On the third day the lights are all going to go green and you're going to be like, I get this, I understand and you're not going to fall so much anymore. But the first three days are brutal. That's that's funny. That's exactly what happened for me. And I think it was on the third day that I finally was having a good time and I was OK and and then I never went again. But it was super fun.

1:15:05 I don't know why. Yeah, I'm more of a skier and you know, I'm actually getting and I hate to say this and or admit it out loud, but I'm getting to an age where it's getting harder to ski because I ski at a very high level and I'm not bragging. I've just been skiing since I was a little kid. I grew up in Western Canada, but when you can't ski often. So in other words I might go skiing for four or five days a year at this point, whereas the people I'm skiing with go 100 days a year. And so I'm just not in the condition that I need to be in. Like I exercise every day, but I don't ski every day like these guys, right? So it's it's just it's really hard and what happens is you ski one really good run where you're you're feeling great and you look good and you're doing all the right stuff. The next one gets a little bit harder. The third run down, your legs are starting to feel like Jello already.

1:16:00 And then you either go sit in the in the lounge and drink beer the rest of the afternoon or or you know, you just say, you know what? I'm done. I've had four runs. I'm, I'm done for the day. That's it. I'm going to quit. And so yeah, it's just getting harder. I either have to commit and ski a lot more or just say you know what, maybe I'll find another hobby, I don't know, but I do love it and I have a house up there. I have a house up in the mountains where skiing is very nearby. So yeah, it's pretty fun. So, so in 2020, was it COVID related that you left or or was that just coincidental? Yeah.

1:16:41 So the, I mean the shutdown of the industry was was felt everywhere, right. And and so at that point in time still PSAV felt it like everyone did and got down to a very small number of sort of full time folks hit pause on most of their operations. And the, you know prior to that there had been a number of opportunities that had been in the back of my mind that I thought, gosh, I think I could really help with that or I think I could really make a difference there. And they were things that I hadn't put myself all into for obvious reasons, right.

1:17:27 You know, you sort of heard where you are and you're working the full time job and you don't, you don't focus outside a lot. And so that was the first time of being home, sitting in a chair, sitting in this chair actually. And I kind of looked up at the ceiling and I thought to myself, what would you do if you could do anything? And I remember the thing that hit me at that moment was I like helping people. And then of course my next thought was, yeah, that's really great. Todd, how do you make money helping people? That sounds a little bit owl pie and that you know and you know, but the more I thought about it, the more I I thought what are the things I've enjoyed doing most? I've enjoyed building businesses, I've enjoyed change management in businesses and you know helping them go through an acquisition or sale process and these are things that that I've done many times over. And so it was a comfort zone, yes. But it was also something that I enjoyed getting that phone call after it saying thanks a lot, couldn't have done it without you.

1:18:29 That meant a lot to me. And I wanted more of that and less less of the sometimes. Values that didn't resonate as much for me that sometimes come out in large ownership groups where people sometimes are are you know, not, not specific to any group, but I I think it's fair to say money is the biggest part of the equation. Growth, growth, growth, right. But sometimes do things that are very short term action and cause a lot of long term harm. And so I felt myself on this treadmill of we were knee jerk reacting short term, but what we really needed to do was pull our head up from the desk, see over the horizon and start planting some seeds there.

1:19:18 And so that's that that was that was when I just said you know what, I'm going to do this, I'm going to, I'm consulting, feels like a four letter word. You know I think of myself more like a seamless part of someone's team is, is how I more like to operate. But that helping people is valuable to me. Yeah, no, that's amazing. And so, I mean, did anyone go? But Todd, you're starting a, I'm going to call it consulting business because I don't know how to call it a helping people, you know, blah blah, blah business. But so. So you're starting a consulting business in the live events slash AV industry. During COVID.

1:19:59 Yeah, during COVID, like a lot of people need help, but not a lot of people are are interested in in paying for outside contractors at that point I would guess. Yeah, well, it's funny, it wasn't my first go to I was going to make a career transition. So my first aspiration was I wanted to be an airline pilot and got dissuaded from doing that early on about the same years I was telling you about in in high school by some folks who were flying for American and Delta. And they basically said, don't waste your time, kid. You're not in the military. You're not gonna get the flight hours. You don't have a shot against the rest of us who are far more seen.

1:20:39 And he didn't mean it bad. He was, I think he was giving me what he thought was sage advice. Well, what ultimately happened was the the housing crisis. And then you had a lot of pilots who retired out of the industry or, you know, by either by choice or by force, And and then there was a huge shortage. So the greatest irony is, it probably would have been perfect. Timing. No kidding, right? Right. That said, I I I don't regret that at all. But what was funny to me is I, you know, years later did finish out my license. And I thought to myself, oh, maybe this is the moment I'll go fly charters. That's what I'll do. That's, you know, this will be the moment to change. Well, and of course there's no planes in the sky. You know, the pandemic is because there's nobody traveling and groups can't gather and you can't be in confined spaces. And so I I remember sort of laughing to myself thinking geez, Todd, you know how to pick them, don't you? Like you pick the people that require people getting together to to do it.

1:21:38 So. So I leaned in on the event side. I, I, you know, really loved the values of that. I know a lot of people in these industries that, you know, that brings a certain measure of of what I enjoy. I I like visiting with people. And so I used that as a time to build. I used it as a time to learn. And and you're right, there were a lot of people that you know that said, boy, we don't have the money to to to bring on somebody to, you know, to coach us through some of this or be sort of a fractional executive and add bandwidth to our projects the moment. But we might need that down the road. And you know, we're looking for somebody who won't make us look stupid in front of our clients and has a lot of history doing the stuff. So that would be a good person for us to be able to reach out to.

1:22:26 And that's ultimately sort of what happened. It was, you know, seed planting and then the seeds started coming up. Well, and I would guess, you know, I wouldn't guess, I'm, I'm quite positive that you earned OK at PSAV. So you weren't in, you weren't in, you didn't have pressure to do something instantly. You had you know the the benefit of some time to make a decision, a good decision and the pilot thing. So you said you finished your license. So what level of of license do you have? Like what? What can you fly? So I'm an instrument rated pilot and would be about 3 days of training away from finishing my commercial. Oh, really? And and then you could fly 730 sevens. No, I need some additional ratings for that. I need my ATP for that, my airline transport pilot license for that, which is a step up from there. At this point I think I probably will finish my commercial. Having the commercial means you can charge for it. So I could I could ferry aircraft or I could fly you know with some companies do some level of charter. As it turns out I wound up using it in my business and it's been really terrific to be able to self commute certain places. So I've had kind of that as a as a tool in the. Pool Can you fly?

1:23:40 Though you can fly jets, you can fly private jets types. Of I'm not type rated on a jet but but any any high performance single aircraft I can just I could I could operate. Fund. Yeah, it's something I always wanted to do. It's funny, when I was, I don't know, 17 years old or something in Canada, I I I started on an ultralight and it was the ultralights though, that look like airplanes, but you didn't need licensing for it. So I took some lessons in that and really loved flying it. It was fun. And then I decided I wanted to go for my, you know, single engine, blah blah.

1:24:22 And so I flew a plane. I did. I don't remember how many hours of flying I did. And then I had to go to ground school and I quit. I was like, this is boring. I don't want to do this. I just want. To fly planes. Come on man, what is all this stuff? I don't want to go back to school, you know, that's not my goal here. But yeah, well, good on you. That's really excellent. I I I'm envious. And you know, one of the questions I've been wanting to ask you here because you talk at such a high level for, and I'm not gonna say for someone in our industry because I know a lot of really smart people in our industry. But our industry is not typically you know like long people don't go to Wharton to run a lighting company you know or Harvard to run a lighting company or sound company or a rental company or whatever you wanna call it.

1:25:19 And that's not a knock on anyone in our industry by the way because you know you learn in Hard Knocks in our industry and and some of the smartest people I know in business are in our industry. But you talk like someone who went to Harvard or or or Wharton or something. You know you have you're very you have very strong principles of business and and finance and and just seemed to have a really really good knowledge and education on that. Was that all practical or or did you did you at some point go to school? The vast majority of it was practical. It was getting to sit at the table with really smart people and be a sponge and the amount of I think gratitude I have for them just letting me sit in the room and absorb the lessons is huge.

1:26:17 You know and in terms of formal training you know there's I'm not sure what I would even point to in our industry now in terms of degree programs or anything like that right. And it's and and oddly it's one of the things that I I have felt sometimes has negatively impacted companies in our industry when the organizations don't have that balance of art and science together, if you will, you know the science of running the business and the financials and the processes, but the art of understanding the industry and its culture and its opportunities and the trajectory of its growth.

1:26:57 I've in recent years, I used to think, boy, I travel an awful lot and maybe I don't need to travel that much. And then I realized that it was the travel and the talking to people is how you learn that information. You learn what's going on with people. You learn the trends and you hear what's happening inside lots of different companies to where you can sort of synthesize that together and go, you know what that's happening in 47 different companies in our industry. That's a thing. What do we do with that to help the industry do better in that way. And and so, yeah, I I would say it's really the the practical pieces enormous. Yeah. I mean on a much smaller scale than you I have, I have helped a lot of people and I've never done it, you know, as an official title or role or anything.

1:27:45 And I don't really have, you know, some of the foundation from, you know, a business acumen or an accounting or finance acumen that you would. But you know, for me it really was just like obvious solutions to to difficult problems most of the time. So, you know, Bob would call me and say, hey, you know, my company's stuck and would you mind having a conversation with me? And I'll give them all the time in the world. And I don't charge them for my time, you know, foolishly most of the time. But, you know, I, I will talk through the problem and I'll give him 14 different possible solutions and he'll say, well, which one should I pick? And I'll, I'll say, well, you know, you need to make that decision. I can't make that final decision for you. I'm going to give you some options. I think each of those options has the ability to solve your problem, but you need to pick which one feels best to you and and which one you know makes the most sense to you or whatever because you need to be behind it. If if I choose the one for you, you might always go, he chose the wrong 1:00 and you're just going to be against it the whole time.

1:28:50 And you know, so just pick one, right. But you know, it's it's such a need in our industry. You're right like there there is no formal education for running a sound and lighting production company 101. You know it. It's typically people jumping in, you know, seat of their pants. They'll call Uncle Tom or somebody who's got some financial or accounting background and they'll pull him out of retirement to become their CFO. And he's never been ACFO before. He's a bookkeeper, you know, and he's retired and doesn't know what he's about to get into. And you know, I think what has happened is, fortunately the business has been strong enough to pull people through those educations, to pull people through like they don't go bankrupt the first mistake they make, you know, 'cause there's enough profit being thrown off of these jobs and stuff that it seems to work out. Yeah, I agree.

1:29:47 And I think a lot of times people just need a a a partner to walk alongside for a little while. Somebody who's not afraid to roll up their sleeves and give them the advisory options, right? Here's the list of things that I think you might want to think about. They choose the things that they want to focus on. And then having that that person that can kind of walk alongside. You know, I I often joke that I like riding shotgun or you know, I'm sort of a ghost in the machine and I that I enjoy that space. I don't mind what. Man, you know, it's so important. Like I I've told people my whole business career. Like one of my greatest challenges in business is that I never have sort of an equal in my company. And you know, I'm a fairly strong thinker and and I come up with lots and lots of ideas.

1:30:37 I'm I'm very creative when it comes to solutions. And. But what happens? You're sitting in a conference room with all of your people having a meeting and eventually you train them not to bring any ideas to the meeting because they know, oh, Marcel's just going to have these ten big ideas and he's going to solve the problem and he doesn't need my ideas, right. And that is so problematic. So I've really been forcing myself to get out of that and and to even if I know that I know something right now about the thing that we're talking about, I know the solution I got to shut up and not because what's going to happen is if I just keep delivering all of these ideas, I'm going to lose everyone at the table.

1:31:18 You know, they're just going to shut up. And and that's happened to me multiple, multiple times in multiple companies. And so, you know, at my ripe old age, I'm still learning that. And you know, I told you earlier and these stories kind of collide. But I told you earlier you were talking about sort of this topic where you basically said you you had so much energy and you had to pull yourself back because otherwise you were just running over people. Cuz you were like first we'll do this and then we'll do this and we'll, you know, I don't, I don't know, you're probably not old enough but there used to be a cartoon with like sort of a big bulldog and a little tiny dog that always followed him around. I forget what they were called, but and the big bulldog walked real slow and you know, we're going to go get this done and we'll eventually get there, you know?

1:32:03 And the little one was like, we're going to do this and we're going to do this And he'd like smack him and go shut up, you know, and. Send him. Flying. But so I, you know, I've, I've been toying with the board idea. You know, I've been asked to join many boards and I've always turned it down because I just thought I was too busy in my own business. But I've gotten involved in a couple of deals where there were either roll ups or there were some acquisitions and and I've become an advisor in those situations a few Times Now. And one of them I was asked to join a board. And so I went to my first board meeting and there have been multiple now, but I went to my first board meeting and not long like I don't know two days after I got home from that board meeting, I get a call from the the private equity group who brought me into it and he said first, Marcel, thank you so much for coming to the board meeting. It was amazing.

1:33:05 You know, it's these are all financial guys and so they really enjoyed having someone who kind of knew the inner workings not only of a company but especially a company in our industry. And and he said, I can't remember exactly. He was very diplomatic about basically saying you need to shut up every once in a while and stop throwing everything at us because basically, and I didn't even think of it at the time, but I completely ran over the CEO. You know, the CEO didn't necessarily have 100 ideas at the table at this board meeting. And I just filled in all the blanks. And it was completely inappropriate.

1:33:47 It was, it was a epic fail on my part and I was embarrassed when he told me this. And and so every day since that time months ago, I've, I've been thinking I'll never do it again. I'll never do it again. I'll never do it again. I'll never do it again. And I probably will, you know, But I'm I'm at least aware of it. I'm aware of it, right? Yeah, we're all learning and doing our work right. We're all learning our pieces. Well, I would guess that you fall into a similar situation though, where you have to be careful because you could easily make Aceo or a founder feel really bad about himself or or you could, you know, sort of pick him up and and help him to be a little bit more inspired or enthusiastic about the future.

1:34:35 And that's all based on your words, that's based on how you present the situation to them, right? It it is that has come up multiple times and some of it is I think you know there's a factor of inside an organization you need teams to respect their leadership in order to want to adopt the action and enroll in whatever their strategy is for their business, right. You need their buy in and so I have always been very careful and and it's genuine you know I I'm I'm there to lift up not pull down.

1:35:16 It's pretty simple. I want to be able to support and help and add bandwidth and usually when I say that they go, oh, add bandwidth, there's some kind of executive level projects we haven't really approached and we haven't dug into because we haven't had the bandwidth. And then it starts to soften a little bit, right, because now it's not about solving a problem, it's about helping provide capacity and and in truth, I think that's more accurate. I I I think there's a lot of and one thing I'll I'll say a lot is you should be really proud of the great work that the teams have done. None of the conversation is about you know a criticism or an indictment.

1:35:59 It is only looking at the next great place you're going to go. So let's let's honor everything that's happened before and it's true. You know they've they have done and built these great businesses and it's OK to to get to a point where you say yeah, I don't I don't know how to do that. I don't feel comfortable doing that. And you know and and you know a tie back to flying. That's something you know right away. If you're doing it wrong you you will know right now if you've entered A maneuver that is not to be done that way or if you have an engine problem or that that machine will give you feedback instantaneously. And so, you know, you have those situations that I, I, I feel like I've learned from as well.

1:36:43 You know, if I move the throttle forward a little bit and I, you know, I pressurize the system so to speak in a company to check it out and see what happens, does it run smoother or rougher? You know, is it what what am I looking for here? So yeah, I think there's, yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. So you know, just to sort of finish off on your business because I want to talk about some of the volunteering things you do and I can't keep you here all day unfortunately. So the business is called Ventana. Does that name mean anything? It it does so, and I'm going to say the cheesiest thing you're going to hear today. But at a time when I thought life was closing all the doors, I decided to build a window.

1:37:29 It means window in Spanish. And where I live there is Ventana Canyon, not too far down the road from me. And so it had sort of this kind of double meaning for me that it was a bit of an escape hatch, if you will, or a a new way out to discover something different. But it was also sort of a nod to where I grew up. That's cool. I like it. I think it's a cool name. And so that business basically does a combination of consulting. I know I'm minimizing that word by saying it, but you're consulting businesses, I think you get involved in, in a bunch of M&A activity, but also investment or or private equity or?

1:38:16 Sure. So most of what I'm doing is strategic strategic consulting is helping people build the plans that get their company to where they want it to go. It's adding that bandwidth to solve a specific problem or to do a deep dive on the business and say you know you want to get to Y word X. Here's the things that that we want to do to get where you want to be. And I, you know I'm I'm oversimplifying because it that touches areas of financial optimization. It touches capital. It sometimes involves me doing sales team training and weaponizing them at a much higher level specific to our industry. It gets into teaching lead generation and how do we capture more wallet share from our existing customers.

1:39:02 What do our products and services do right now that we could leverage in another vertical We haven't even thought of that. Maybe I could introduce them to. So it it touches a number of those areas and I would say the space that I, I spend probably 60% of my time involves all of those things and is working mostly with founder LED or early matrix companies. It's it's a lot of founder LED companies that will say we need somebody who specializes in taking us from small to big. How do we do that? What are the steps and will you come alongside and and and be player, coach? Run some plays with us, Help us figure it out. So, so to sort of define where that is, is that like in our industry would that be a company like somewhere between 5 and 15 or 20 million?

1:39:51 I I have a a couple of clients in that space. Yeah I think the the sort of 5 to 25 is a good range and I and I enjoy that space. I think there's it it's getting people from that all hands on deck leadership mentality migrated over to a stay in your lane leadership model and it's very consequential in my opinion. If you do it badly at that stage you'll never get to 50 million. If you do it right, you stack the odds in your favor that you might get to 200 million. So there's there, there's a handful of those and and I also do some work with some much larger players as well in very similar categories now for them and and you know think more like 250 million plus size companies.

1:40:39 It's a mature matrix model. But usually what's happened is that they have a change management need or they've gotten corporate inertia in a direction that it shouldn't be going and they're trying to figure out how to grow and work more efficiently operate their current business. And so that's a that's a different kind of an animal. I would say probably 10% of my interactions are acquisition and sales. So I I do have a a client currently that I work alongside them to help protect their valuation and help you know actively negotiate on their behalf and sit on the calls and work through the due diligence packets with them to make sure that they've got somebody on their side calling, calling it out when when maybe it's not in their best interest. Very cool.

1:41:28 Yeah, that's great. That's fantastic. And so, but most of your clients or or companies that you work with are in the AV live events space. Yeah, AV and entertainment spaces. OK, cool. That's right. Yeah. Interesting. So you love boards and volunteer boards and and all of these types of things. I actually did not know of the very first two that are listed here. I didn't know that you were on the on the ESA board and I also didn't know that you were on the ESTA board and you're the president of ESTA. So it just shows how how much I've kept in touch with ESTA over the years.

1:42:08 I used to play along fairly closely with them and got involved in some of the technology when I was with Martin. I think we were part of the fog and smoke group there or whatever. And but you know, that's got to be a really interesting experience and also probably opens a lot of doors too, I would guess. It has been wonderful to be able to spend time with that group of folks, not just the Board of directors who I have tremendous respect for and really just appreciate them as people, but also a lot of the working groups and you know, you talk about technical standards and what's happened there. I've certainly been involved in some standards writing particular to the rigging industry but also the programs they have in protocol you know their journal that they published quarterly that highlights good things happening in our industry is is another piece that I I get to sort of tap into and and learn from the folks in that realm. And then obviously the TCP programs the certification programs for power and electrical Power Distribution slash electrical and then rigging of course. So it's been, I've partnered with them, gosh, in some form or another for almost 10 years now and have served on the Board of Directors now in my second three-year term. So I yeah, I've, I've really enjoyed that and we'd love to have you come back.

1:43:37 Here's my there's my shame of invitation and blood for you. Yeah. I mean, without making this sound lousy, what is Esta's role now? And and so I know that like earlier, 20 years ago, 20 plus years ago, ESTA was starting to swing a pretty, pretty good bat and Steve Terry was involved. And you know, there were some, some significant players and they're probably still are, but they were able to, they were a voice and they were a voice that people were listening to. I don't hear a lot of people talk about ESTA these days, and I don't know if that's just, you know, the way it goes or or maybe I'm just not listening to the right people or whatever. But what is?

1:44:21 You know, what's your, what's your drive? What's the role for ESTA right now? Yeah. So the trajectory for ESTA has changed a lot and I mean even since the pandemic has changed a lot. So it going to your comments, there has been a long legacy of equipment dealers, manufacturers, it's all companies has been historically right. It doesn't have individual members. It has organizations as members. And so you will have an executive or representative of a company that comes to the meetings and they help write standards and they advocate on behalf of their own subject matter expertise. And so that those groups are very active. Actually, the the Technical Standards program has many standards that are currently under developmental revision. And if I if I can interrupt just for a second, I apologize, but those standards are not like they're not their suggestions. They have no weight, correct?

1:45:21 So the. The. They they're antsy accredited. So the antsy standards that was more true than in the past than it is now for the reason that you're starting to see a lot more lawsuits reference OSHA and OSHA starts to point to antsy and say well this is what a body of experts in the industry said therefore it becomes referenced in the lawsuit. So is it a recommendation? Yes, in its purest form it is. That being said the acceptance of it in courtrooms now is dramatically higher than ever before. So, so wall recommendation, it's definitely being leveraged to have very consequential conversations for people like you know I.

1:46:10 It's funny because I I was talking with Jim about this on ESA and what does it take to get from suggestion to you know, a stamp that says this is ESTA approved or or ESA approved or whatever, where it's like a UL where it has to be on there, it's a compliance thing. Is that just an impossibility to get to that point or? No, I mean these committees will will spend generally more than a year. I mean less than a year would be incredibly fast to try to achieve something. But the cycle of them is, I would say sort of the ones I've been involved with kind of 1 to 2 1/2 ish years depending on complexity.

1:46:56 And it goes through rounds of public review, so anyone can weigh in and tell you if you're right or you're wrong or they have a third answer you haven't thought of. And then ultimately it does get the antsy stamp and you can put that into practice. The, I would say the two most popular programs rest of for sure are the standards that we're talking about and also ETCP. So the certificates in that program continue to grow. Actually this year they've grown a lot and so there's a lot of pieces there. But I I, I would say that the organization is really focused on relevance right now in terms of how do we get from where we were to where we want to go.

1:47:37 And a good example of that is the the Equitable Workplace initiative that was sponsored through Netflix under ESTA. And if you haven't seen it, definitely something to check out, but it speaks to that diversity and inclusion. How do we get a workforce initiative in our industry that really starts to diversify things a bit more, more representative of the demographic of who our industry is. So you know that's an initiative you wouldn't have seen even you know 5 or 10 years ago, right. And so there's there's definitely some significant areas there where where they are evolving in that space.

1:48:19 And then what about things like you know, the the stuff that Michael Strickland and certainly I helped him on some of it, but Michael Strickland was so good at getting through to you know the government and and trying to get things passed and put in place to protect our industry. And you know his, his famous, his famous saying was always that you know industries like the airlines or hospitality would show up at the Senate with with battleships and we would show up in 100 canoes. And. And so does ESTA get involved in any of that kind of stuff like protecting, protecting our industry, I guess, or or uniting our industry from a standpoint of, you know, this could happen again where the world tries to shut down our entire industry and we want to have a voice when that happens, not just 100 canoes, right?

1:49:11 So. Do you get, have you guys gotten involved in that at all? Yeah, absolutely. Actually, there was a Creative industry round table, second annual that was hosted at the NAMM show this year. I moderated last year and this year and it's a collection of about 25 organizations in our industry from around the US that are passionate about that exact workforce development voice that that we have together. And so it's it's very directly related to that I I personally am in favor of any voices that want to help us unify and lift up and be visible.

1:49:53 And so I, I, yeah that's that's a really good one. I I. And so we we connect quarterly but but certainly have a very clear vision around saying let's protect each of our own sort of unique identities that you know we come to the group not as a let's have one voice for all 'cause I think what what a lot of people reacted to or what what I've observed is, you know I still have my own specialness about my organization that serves a certain purpose and and you have yours. And so how do we all sort of if if we're not going to have one voice, can we get all of the key voices or the influential voices who represent much bigger audiences to the table so that they can all sit together.

1:50:36 And really that's that's what that's been. So yeah, really, really like that. You know, and this is my opinion only, and it's probably not an extremely popular opinion, but part of the problem is aligning with Nam. I think and and I I say that because Nam is not really representative of our industry. We're we're such a tiny little cog in their massive chain and and we are very small to them as an industry. And I know we've been pushing hard in that direction for a number of years now to better align with Nam as part of this. You know we're a music industry and blah blah blah.

1:51:16 But you know we're just we're shoved off into the corner. We're such a small piece of it. Like I'd certainly love to see it more aligned with LDI with you know, shows that really are, you know, substantial industry shows for our own industry. And you know, I and I say this from a person who's got experience exhibiting at NAMM as a lighting company and realizing we are such a small part of this business, you know, these massive music store people and stuff like that. So that's just my own thought. Like hopefully you're aligned with LDI as well. So you know what's what's really interesting about that is the ESTA and the ESA have sort of been the neutral nation, so to speak, to host those meetings for which Nam volunteered space when we're going to be in town around it. So I two things.

1:52:16 I agree with what you said and by the way, Nam sees that as well. They're you know their their teams have been terrifically gracious and they also recognize that their their primary demographic is musical instruments overwhelms and will take a long time to sort of bring in production out of it, right. So there's I mean and there's there's good visibility there. They're not unrealistic about that. They also at the same time value the whole ecosystem and so that's made for a nice conversation. Now all that being said, believe it or not, we actually did approach LDI sometime back and and that was not a, it was not a priority. For. Them received conversation at that point in time but but that being the case it is certainly something that we are are actively talking about and would like to would like to be visible where our members are visible. You know, if I can put it that way, I think that's where you if you need.

1:53:14 Some muscle Todd sick me on them. I'm happy to. I will. I'm already setting up the call as we speak there. You go, there you go. And So what did I miss here? So you're also a volunteer pilot. So you're not only a pilot, but you're flying as a volunteer, which is interesting. Yeah, So what I, you know what I liked about that organization a little more personal. I mean obviously behind the scenes charity, very personal cause for me. And then service with ESTA and service with the Event Safety Alliance. In terms of their mission alliance. For me, what I liked about Angel Flights, W was the idea that you might have people who couldn't afford to get to critical medical care and that if you had the time and you had the access that maybe you could make a real difference for them.

1:54:04 So, you know, when it's not just adults, it's kids too. It's kids who are going to cancer treatments or things that their parents desperately wish that they could afford to transport and get them to the best hospital where their kid could get a good chance. So, so that really hit for me. I've got three kids and I would hope that if I was in a situation where I needed something critically, that somebody would raise their hand for me to. So how often are you doing that? Like how how often are you doing these volunteer flights? It's exceedingly rare it's and part of that is my availability and part of that is where the the, the mission is. So what they will do is they will publish how many people and where they want to go to and from and days and times and things like that.

1:54:51 So it's it's a a large network of folks but that being said it does greatly reduce sort of where you can get you know to and from depending on where they need to go. Wow, that's amazing. Congrats, Congrats and good on you. Good, good, good job. Like you're doing some incredible work and and like I said in the intro, I'm not worthy. You know I appreciate you taking the time for a a dummy like me to to sit here and learn from your incredible wealth of of knowledge and I'm not making fun of you because you know you've really done some cool stuff. I mean, I'm, I'm definitely impressed with how you've managed to, you know, get into that PSAV thing and then not only survive, but thrive and and ride it to a pretty high level. And Congrats, man.

1:55:41 That's really, really cool. Thanks Did. I miss anything, Todd. Did I forget? To talk about anything, because I'm sure, not unlike you, I have about a billion other things that I got to get to. So I'm. I'm going to have to say goodbye. But. No, thank. Thanks so much for doing it, Todd. I appreciate it. And let's let's catch up one of these days when you recover from spending two hours with me and we can talk about stuff that we couldn't talk about on a podcast. No, thanks for the opportunity. Thanks for having me. It's always good to see you. Thanks so much. See you. Thanks man. See you. Yeah.